''It was absolutely terrifying''

Clay Lucas, Mex Cooper and Bridie Smith

JASON Jeffers had just been served breakfast when he heard the noise. "There was a 'bang', but not an explosion bang - more like something falling over or a thud," said Mr Jeffers, who was sitting in a window seat.

"And suddenly, after the bang, you could see the curtains swirling away and there was a sudden rush of wind and a loss of pressure in the cabin," he said. "And then the masks fell from the ceiling."

Qantas pilot Captain John Francis Bartles inspects the hole in the fuselage.

Rumours travelled down the aisles that a door had come off or a window had blown out and the plane descended quickly.

Mr Jeffers, a maths researcher from Preston, had been at Cambridge University this week collecting his PhD, and was flying home to Melbourne on Qantas flight QF30.

But he and 345 other passengers found themselves at the centre of a nerve-racking drama as their flight from London made an emergency landing in Manila.

Australian passengers recounted dramatic stories of debris flying through the cabin of the plane after a hole opened up in its belly at 29,000 feet. Marina Scaffidi said the hole extended from the cargo hold into the passenger cabin, sending debris swirling through freezing wind.

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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau was last night sending four investigators to Manila to inspect the Boeing 747-400, which Qantas said had been carrying 346 passengers and 19 crew. No one was hurt.

"At approximately 29,000 feet, the crew were forced to conduct an emergency descent after a section of the fuselage separated and resulted in a rapid decompression of the cabin," the bureau said. The crew brought the plane down to 10,000 feet and requested an emergency landing.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon described the incident as "a highly unusual situation" but praised the pilots and crew for their handling of the incident.

A report by the Manila International Airport Authority quoting pilot John Francis Bartels, said an initial investigation indicated there was an "explosive decompression". Mr Dixon said the airline was also sending its engineers to Manila.

Last night, a replacement aircraft was flying to Manila to collect stranded passengers. Another Melbourne woman, June Kane, told how parts of the plane's interior broke apart in the depressurised cabin.

"There was a terrific boom and bits of wood and debris just flew forward into first (class) and the oxygen masks dropped down," she told ABC Radio. She later saw a gaping hole near the wing, with bits of baggage hanging out. "It was absolutely terrifying, but I have to say everyone was very calm."

Manila airport operations officer Ding Lima told local radio many passengers were extremely distressed as they got off the plane, with some vomiting.

He said the hole was about three metres in diameter and part of the plane's flooring and ceiling had given way.

Melbourne engineer Tom Coverdale, from Ringwood, was wearing noise reduction headphones when he "felt a thump", then saw oxygen masks fall down as the cabin lost air pressure.

"It was happening so fast and there were children screaming. But under the circumstances, the hostesses were great, securing everything so there was no debris to fly around and it felt reasonably controlled."

Mr Coverdale said the pilot made a brief announcement, that "something had gone wrong" but didn't say the plane would land at Manila. Instead, he saw the plane change course on the screen in the cabin.

The plane, registered VH-OJK and named the City of Newcastle, made its first flight in 1991 and is old by international 747 standards; most 747s flying in international fleets are around 15 years old.

An amateur plane spotters' website, www.airliners.net, listed the City of Newcastle as having had repairs for "serious corrosion issues" in February this year at Avalon Airport. Qantas would not comment on the posting last night, with a spokeswoman saying only: "Anything like that will come out in Australian Transport Safety Bureau report and it would be inappropriate for us to comment."

Peter Gibson from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority told the ABC that initial reports indicated a problem with air pressure in the cabin.

"The pilot has some pressurisation warnings about a door on the left-hand side of the aircraft, but exactly what went wrong is still being determined."

In recent weeks, a bitter industrial dispute between Qantas and its licensed engineers has resulted in scores of flights being cancelled or delayed. Last night the engineers' union said they could not yet say whether the incident had been caused by poor fleet maintenance.

"We would love to be able to say that this is caused by underpriced maintenance, but we just don't have any idea what the cause of the hole was," said Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association. "It'll be some time before they know the cause of the incident, but they'll be investigating it now."

Australian Government sources said there was nothing to indicate that the aircraft had been sabotaged or that the damage was the result of terrorist action. With Matthew Burgess and Agencies